Current v1.13 Development Discussion

[Shadow Warlord]

Hello people. I haven't played this game in years, and even though I would love to, I don't think I will in the foreseeable future, but I still read the forums all the time for some reason. And looking Fresol's Canada game made me annoyed at how much of a mess the city names are. Spelling mistakes, missing tiles, absence of a proper city name map for France in the area, and so on.

I decided I would take a look at the file, correct some inaccuracies, and add some names where there were none. Of course, perfectionism kicked in and I ended up revising the entire thing.

Here is therefore an updated CityNameManager.py file, with what I think is a much better city name map for Canada, along with other changes to the French map, renaming rules for cities, etc.

As I am unable to play the game, this probably needs to be tested in case I made a small syntax mistake or such.

Hopefully comprehensive list of changes:

Spoiler :

CANADA
- Defined the languages used for Canada to iLangAmerican first and iLangEnglish second. Thus USA and Canada share their maps; I figured it didn't matter because neither country has ever occupied the other, and it saves the trouble of creating a new "language" for Canada, while allowing Canada to differ from England.
- Canada/USA uses French names in French-speaking areas (Quebec) and English names in the rest of Canada
- Corrected many spelling mistakes
- In many cases, removed names of small, less important towns and replaced them with major city names if there is such a city nearby. For instance, Calgary is now four tiles instead of just one, while the town of Swift Current doesn't exit anymore. This seems to be how it works in the USA part of the map anyway.
- As it has been pointed out, Montreal is where Quebec City should be, geographically speaking, but having Montreal there is more important for gameplay. Since Quebec City is much more important than smaller towns north of it, I moved it a little northeast, allowing both Qc and Mtl to exist at the cost of a minor geographical distortion. (Disclaimer: I am from Quebec City)
- Checked basically every name on the map to make sure it was actually geographically accurate and the most significant town in the area, and ended up changing a lot of them
- Added many missing names in northern Quebec, northern Manitoba, NW Territories and Nunavut. Many of them, I believe, cannot be founded, but whatever. Climate change.

USA
- I think there was a tile with no name next to Spokane. Now it's Spokane too.
- Also changed a St. Louis for a Memphis.
- Revised northern Alaska

ENGLAND
- For the most part, same changes as the Canada/USA map.
- Uses English names in Quebec
- Some colonial/trading post names used instead of more recent Canadian cities, especially in the Hudson Bay area

FRANCE
- France basically lost its city name map in Canada entirely when Canada was added, did it not? It used mostly English names all over the place. Now it's a proper French map again.
- French names for Québec, Montréal, etc.
- Lots of spelling mistakes corrected.
- Colonial French names added to virtually all territories that have been part of New France (Quebec, Acadia, Great Lakes region, Western Canada, Illinois, Louisiana), as was the case before the addition of Canada. But in more accurate. That means there are a lot of potential Fort Somethings all over the place.
- Removed many names in western USA, i.e. territories that were never controlled by the French (and had names of forts/settlements that were actually much closer to the Mississippi)
- For the rest of Canada, uses the same names as the Canada/USA map.
- While I was at it, renamed Brazilian Saint-Louis to "Saint-Louis de Maragnan" (since "Saint-Louis" is in the USA) and corrected the spelling of the Falklands settlement.
- Added "La Nouvelle-Angoulême" for New York, why not
- Also I didn't touch the Caribbean because I was confused (has it changed in game but not in the city name manager?), but I would have liked to.

RENAMING RULES
- Updated whenever I changed a name (e.g. La Nouvelle-Orléans, Saint-Louis de Maragnan)
- Added a few, such as Port-Royal <--> Annapolis Royal, and Fort Frontenac --> Ottawa
- Noticed that rules for a French Constantinople and Jerusalem were missing, added them
- Noticed I could spend hours making this part of the file better and decided I should probably do something more useful with my time

I hope these changes are agreed upon, I can always revert some of them if asked.

For the Caribbean, i don't think France actually has a name for Port-au-Prince in Haiti.

 

[Panopticon]

Hello people. I haven't played this game in years, and even though I would love to, I don't think I will in the foreseeable future, but I still read the forums all the time for some reason. And looking Fresol's Canada game made me annoyed at how much of a mess the city names are. Spelling mistakes, missing tiles, absence of a proper city name map for France in the area, and so on.

I decided I would take a look at the file, correct some inaccuracies, and add some names where there were none. Of course, perfectionism kicked in and I ended up revising the entire thing.

Here is therefore an updated CityNameManager.py file, with what I think is a much better city name map for Canada, along with other changes to the French map, renaming rules for cities, etc.

As I am unable to play the game, this probably needs to be tested in case I made a small syntax mistake or such.

Hopefully comprehensive list of changes:

Spoiler :

CANADA
- Defined the languages used for Canada to iLangAmerican first and iLangEnglish second. Thus USA and Canada share their maps; I figured it didn't matter because neither country has ever occupied the other, and it saves the trouble of creating a new "language" for Canada, while allowing Canada to differ from England.
- Canada/USA uses French names in French-speaking areas (Quebec) and English names in the rest of Canada
- Corrected many spelling mistakes
- In many cases, removed names of small, less important towns and replaced them with major city names if there is such a city nearby. For instance, Calgary is now four tiles instead of just one, while the town of Swift Current doesn't exit anymore. This seems to be how it works in the USA part of the map anyway.
- As it has been pointed out, Montreal is where Quebec City should be, geographically speaking, but having Montreal there is more important for gameplay. Since Quebec City is much more important than smaller towns north of it, I moved it a little northeast, allowing both Qc and Mtl to exist at the cost of a minor geographical distortion. (Disclaimer: I am from Quebec City)
- Checked basically every name on the map to make sure it was actually geographically accurate and the most significant town in the area, and ended up changing a lot of them
- Added many missing names in northern Quebec, northern Manitoba, NW Territories and Nunavut. Many of them, I believe, cannot be founded, but whatever. Climate change.

USA
- I think there was a tile with no name next to Spokane. Now it's Spokane too.
- Also changed a St. Louis for a Memphis.
- Revised northern Alaska

ENGLAND
- For the most part, same changes as the Canada/USA map.
- Uses English names in Quebec
- Some colonial/trading post names used instead of more recent Canadian cities, especially in the Hudson Bay area

FRANCE
- France basically lost its city name map in Canada entirely when Canada was added, did it not? It used mostly English names all over the place. Now it's a proper French map again.
- French names for Québec, Montréal, etc.
- Lots of spelling mistakes corrected.
- Colonial French names added to virtually all territories that have been part of New France (Quebec, Acadia, Great Lakes region, Western Canada, Illinois, Louisiana), as was the case before the addition of Canada. But in more accurate. That means there are a lot of potential Fort Somethings all over the place.
- Removed many names in western USA, i.e. territories that were never controlled by the French (and had names of forts/settlements that were actually much closer to the Mississippi)
- For the rest of Canada, uses the same names as the Canada/USA map.
- While I was at it, renamed Brazilian Saint-Louis to "Saint-Louis de Maragnan" (since "Saint-Louis" is in the USA) and corrected the spelling of the Falklands settlement.
- Added "La Nouvelle-Angoulême" for New York, why not
- Also I didn't touch the Caribbean because I was confused (has it changed in game but not in the city name manager?), but I would have liked to.

RENAMING RULES
- Updated whenever I changed a name (e.g. La Nouvelle-Orléans, Saint-Louis de Maragnan)
- Added a few, such as Port-Royal <--> Annapolis Royal, and Fort Frontenac --> Ottawa
- Noticed that rules for a French Constantinople and Jerusalem were missing, added them
- Noticed I could spend hours making this part of the file better and decided I should probably do something more useful with my time

I hope these changes are agreed upon, I can always revert some of them if asked.

Well done.

 

[youtien]

In recent versions, pantheon China suffers huge religion stability penalty, so we can't build all those wonders anymore.

I suggest this placement:

1. Luoyang in 2E(research wheel - pottery - writing) or 2ES (research AH-writing), build the Hanging Gardens and the Oracle (metal casting)
2. Shanghai or Hangzhou
3. Guangzhou on the banana tile - provides 4 food at spot. Build the Colossus.
4. Naha for access to pearl, can whip / chop the Great Cothon.
5. Myitkyna near or on rainforest gold. You need a fort for early access.

Research math, raise a GS and bulb alphabet, trade tech with India, oracle for metal casting, switch to OR after the Colossus. This is the better placement for China for now I think. If you stay pantheon too long, you'll collapse.

 

[Theodorick]

I still see you're still trying to break the game as much as you can! You better be careful or pantheon China will be made even more unstable.

 

[Leoreth]

Nah you just can't balance the game around what youtien does.

 

[Shadow Warlord]

Nah you just can't balance the game around what youtien does.

Yeah, because the game stops being fun when the only way to win is min/maxing or using exploits.

 

[Drag0wn]

Can we talk about how bad Mongolia is? After trying to play them, I figured out why they collapse so early so often in the SVN. It has to do with their core area "expansion". Here's a screenshot from a game I'm trying to play right now:

While you might not believe this, Ulaangom, Tianjin, Shandong, Changchum, Khanbaliq, and Khamul are core area. The starting core area for the Mongols is nice. You can even place another core city one tile west or northwest of the wheat near Korea, usually called Mukden.

So, Mongolia can support quite a nice periphery population with this core area, although the AI would never settle as well as I did. The problem the AI has is with the core area "expansion", something I'm avoiding as well. Why do I put "expands" in quotes? Because your core area actually retracts greatly.

In my screenshot, the only core cities remaining after the core area shifts are Khanbaliq and Khamul. The AI often doesn't settle Mukden, which is the only other reasonable core city you can have with the new, smaller core area. So, your core population score is now around 13-14 times 4, so 56 or so. You still have cities in Mongolia that are now historical instead of core, so they count as periphery population, and almost all of China is foreign/foreign core area. So if the Mongols control Khanbaliq, Khamul, 3 size 4 cities in Mongolia, and 5 size 9 cities in China, they're overextended at 67/56, and this is a somewhat conservative estimate as I'm not counting other central asian citiesthey always conquer and the Chinese cities that can get quite larger than size 9. So, the core shifts and suddenly they're collapsing (not to mention the religious disunity penalties the Mongols often struggle with).

If the cities in Mongolia remained core (as in, the core expansion was an expansion, not a retraction) Mongolia in the above scenario would be 55/100, which is perfectly stable from an expansion point of view.

Another kick in the face is the trigger for the core area retraction. It is not controlling China, believe it or not, it is China collapsing. Even if you have no cities in China, if China collapses, your core area shifts to the Khanbaliq/Khamul area. The only games where I've seen Mongolia hold out for the long term are when China gets vassalized or they make a peace agreement and China remains stable, meaning the Mongols are still on their old core area.

So, I'm suggesting you make the core expansion on China's collapse a true expansion (that is, the old core tiles are still core tiles) or you change the trigger for the core area shift to controlling China instead of China collapsing (so you can play a central asian empire without having to baby China along the whole game) or ideally, both. Hopefully Mongolia will be able to last long enough to be a threat to something, as often times they fail to be a threat to China.

 

[Publicola]

I suggest this placement:

1. Luoyang in 2E(research wheel - pottery - writing) or 2ES (research AH-writing), build the Hanging Gardens and the Oracle (metal casting)
2. Shanghai or Hangzhou
3. Guangzhou on the banana tile - provides 4 food at spot. Build the Colossus.
4. Naha for access to pearl, can whip / chop the Great Cothon.
5. Myitkyna near or on rainforest gold. You need a fort for early access.

Where exactly are Naha and Myitkyna? I feel like Naha is Taiwan and Myitkyna would be somewhere in Indochina, but both are shots in the dark.

 

[Vectors]

Where exactly are Naha and Myitkyna? I feel like Naha is Taiwan and Myitkyna would be somewhere in Indochina, but both are shots in the dark.

Naha is Ryukyu (Okinawa)

 

[The Diocletian]

How is the expansion bonus from Mercantilism (reduced expansion penalty for overseas cities) calculated? Different continents? If, for example, I hold Beijing as Japan, does this count as an "overseas city"?

 

[youtien]

Yeah, because the game stops being fun when the only way to win is min/maxing or using exploits.

Without pantheon, you can still do well enough. OK I am going to start a regent normal game without pantheon.

 

[Fresol]

How is the expansion bonus from Mercantilism (reduced expansion penalty for overseas cities) calculated? Different continents? If, for example, I hold Beijing as Japan, does this count as an "overseas city"?

I think it applies to cities where you cannot train settlers before Astronomy? And the cities need to be historical.

 

[Leoreth]

How is the expansion bonus from Mercantilism (reduced expansion penalty for overseas cities) calculated? Different continents? If, for example, I hold Beijing as Japan, does this count as an "overseas city"?

I think it applies to cities where you cannot train settlers before Astronomy? And the cities need to be historical.

The criteria are the same for both rules, and apply whenever the description refers to overseas or colonies. Overseas is everything not on the same continent. For this purpose, a landmass needs a minimum size to be their own continent. Also, some artificial continent borders exist, e.g. Europe/Middle East/East Asia.

 

[Xfactor]

Leoreth are you planning on adding additional custom features to 1.3 like the second UU and UB modmod , it would be interesting to see such changes but still big step to take and balance tbh

 

[Leoreth]

1.13 is already feature complete. We'll see after release.

 

[youtien]

OK I think this could be 2nd best Chinese city placement for now. Found Lanzhou instead of Luoyang at first - you can catch 1 wheat, 2 pig and 3 hills. Found Luoyang as 2nd city, should move left 1 tile so you can reach 2 more hills and have less overlap with Hangzhou.

Found Guangzhou on banana as 3rd city. Research AH-writing- the wheel - fishing - sailing - math. Build a galley, Lanzhou raise GS, found 4th city on Phillipine rainforest gold tile with a worker onboard. That's your Great cothon city if you run pantheon.

If you don't run pantheon you can beeline calendar, I got rifling without pantheon in about 1150 AD. And with pantheon, with all those classical wonders, I got rifling in 1020.

Move capital to Luoyang after you build Great Canal there. You need Chittagong for invading India - one mine on rainforest hill gives your army access.

Sanshan count as core area, so I found it, maybe it shouldn't be. This way we can have 5 cities in China proper, 4 mega cities and 1 mid city.

 

[ezzlar]

Ok. I'll try that setup and aim for rifling. Cant you write about your game in the strategy sub-forum?

 

[youtien]

I can't find that strategy subforum.

Tried a regent epic game, it is even easier.

Research: AH- wheel- fishing -sailing-math - mysticism - (bulb alphabet, trade teches) - calendar - Oracle for metal casting - monotheism - currency - construction - machinary.

Lanzhou build worker-warrior-settler(size 2) - taixue - settler - the Oracle. Luoyang warrior - settler(size 2) - warrior - settler - the Hanging Garden. Guangzhou build galley - 2 work boat (1 for pearl 1 for clam near Naha) - Great Lighthouse - the Colossus. Phillipine gold city build harbor - granary, Naha build the Great Cothon (whip a warrior at pop 2, you get 23 hammers overflow; chop 2 forests in Taiwan and Japan, you can build it before someone does with a little luck).

Send your initial warrior to capture workers from Babylon (sheep tile), cease fire, then capture another near Shushan, then Babylon again. We can get 3-4 workers this way, this is crucial.

 

[Publicola]

Subforums will be near the top of the main page -- it's the box below "Display Options." The specific subforum is "Gameplay Guides."

1) What's the rationale for settling Lanzhou first, instead of just directly setting Luoyang? What benefit does it give, to settle the lesser city first?

2) Do you send a warrior to escort each worker unit from Babylon back to China, or do you send them out on their own?

 

[Fresol]

1) It's on plains hill, and is -and--rich in early game. Also it makes use of that pig on hill which will otherwise be missed. Maintenance cost is low on Regent, so it's worthwhile to have an extra city early.